That Wretched Thing Called the Mother-Daughter Relationship

By Jeannie Park, Rabbits in Submarines Collective (South Korea)

When I first encountered the work of Japanese feminist sociologists who questioned the
tradition of blaming mothers for their daughters’ eating disorders, I felt something like
liberation. Their arguments didn’t just make sense—they gave voice to something I had long
believed, quietly, even guiltily: that this way of explaining everything through the mother was
too simple.
Among survivors in South Korea, it’s common to frame eating disorders as the consequence
of dysfunctional family dynamics—especially of the mother’s failings. But I always felt
uneasy about that. It seemed like an overly neat explanation. At times, even an irresponsible
one.
In the stories we tell about eating disorders, the mother is often positioned as both cause
and cure: the source of psychic injury, and the only one who can save the daughter. Even
sufferers—myself included—have leaned on this logic to make sense of our pain. But that
clarity can cost us something. And it may not help anyone heal.
I’ve lived through the impossibility of this dynamic. My mother was often unwell. I couldn’t
express anger without fearing it would harm her. After a suicide attempt in my early twenties,
she stood over my hospital bed and asked, “How could you do this to me?” I turned my face
away, feeling choked.
For years, I stayed away. I skipped family gatherings, holidays, photos.
Then one day, she started coming to Seoul. Every other Saturday.
We always met at the same shabu shabu buffet near the train station. She knew I only ate
vegetables, so our pot would bubble with mountains of cabbage, sprouts, and mushrooms. It
looked strange compared to the other tables, full of beef and dumplings. But that was us.
Afterwards, we’d sit in a crowded café with iced drinks, talk too long, and sometimes cry.
Eventually, I became more comfortable with my father too. We all aged into something less
rigid. Not better—just… softer.
But I can’t apply that gentler perspective to the mother-daughter duos I encounter now as an
eating disorder advocate in South Korea, where professional care remains underdeveloped.
I often speak to young girls in despair, and to their mothers, who are exhausted and
frightened.
Many of these girls have been hospitalized, only to be retraumatized. Some were forced by
staff to eat food dropped on the floor. Others were monitored, weighed, but never truly seen.
Their mothers tried to help. And failed.

One girl shouted at her mom: “You left me in that hell. What do you want from me now?”
Another snapped: “Why are you bringing that up again? I was trying to eat. I’m not going to
eat now.”
And the mother? She’s left wordless. Her murmurs became barely distinguishable.
At first, I worried about her condition. But it turned out she had simply lowered her
voice—out of fear that her daughter might overhear our conversation.
I’ve said to these mothers, “You didn’t say the wrong thing. You said something a mother
might say. She can get angry. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed.” But I know my words won’t
fix anything.
What frightens me most is how easily the relationship between mother and daughter
becomes a closed system—an emotional loop that absorbs all blame, all desire, all hurt. But
something is always missing from that picture.
Not just better therapists. Not just kinder language. But the structures, histories, and
institutional failures that created this impossible bind in the first place.
I’ve lived inside that bind. I still return to its shape. And that recognition is what I carry
now—not resolution, but the discomfort of seeing how narrow the lens has been.
There’s more to say. There’s always more.
For the rest of this reflection, I invite you to read the full version on the Rabbits in
Submarines Collective blog: https://rabbitsubmarinecol.weebly.com/